Re: It's all good

And the worst part about the inhumane drugs war is that it has resulted in people lumping pretty much any psychoactive compound under the umbrella demonisation term "DRUGZ". Alcohol is a drug, you know, with far more harm potential than many of the illegal substances out there.

Really, comparing weed to cocaine? Might as well compare an egg whisk to a jackhammer.

Re: Appropriate use of icon..

I recall travelling to our neighbours before EU days

Admittedly, "before EU days" was pretty much the cold war, and there was all kinds of other crap to deal with. You know, like Germany being split across the middle by a bloody big wall and people getting their arses shot off for trying to cross over it.

Also the UK has agreed to some parts of the Schengen agreement. I think the healthcare provisions are one part. So, if you're in an EU country that isn't your home, and you fall sick, you can use that country's health service. Yes, even if you are a Pole living in the UK. I think there is even some provision where if you are ill in your home country, the domestic health service cannot help you, and there is a treatment elsewhere in the EU, you can travel to the other country and have your home nation's health service pay for the treatment.

It helped immensely with a friend trying to get on the Sativex program when he managed to say to the NHS guys in so many words, "marijuana is a treatment that works for my conditions, so how about I go to Amsterdam and you pay for it?"

Re: Vladimir Plouzhnikov

Actually you can fit between 74 and 80 minutes of CD quality digital audio on a CD. Ahem.

If you moonlight as a DJ, you'll also know that the punters on the dance floor probably don't care about the 20khz ceiling for 44.1khz digital audio, that probably isn't very audible amongst the groundshaking bass being pumped through a bunch of Peaveys or Kenwoods anyway.

Now if you're going to tell me that vinyl is better for cueing up and mixing stuff together, I'll probably agree. There is a reason that time coded vinyl is widely regarded as the best digital DJ UI. However, quality wise, a 128kbit mp4 probably exceeds the quality of a 12" EP or LP, and you can fit a whole ton of those on a CD.

Re: Not only but also

So now, every phone will come with two cables, and a charger. Instead of the one cable and charger that they now come with. Way to "reduce unnecessary waste" !!!

Or the vast majority of phones will come with a single port that does everything and fits to most phones, and a couple of awkward bastards will insist on using a seperate port for "enhanced functionality". You know, like data.

Re: Android.. on x86?

Android is already a virtual machine running on a Linux kernel. That's what the whole "dalvik" thing is. I guess if you compile the Android Linux kernel for x86, Android runs on x86. Same for ARM, MIPS or whatever the CPU-du-jour is. Hell, being a Linux kernel, I'm surprised we haven't seen Android kitchen toasters yet, although Sammy seem to have joined in a little with the hacker spirit and made an Android refrigerator.

A data allowance would be a pretty good way of getting an email or other alert saying "oi, some fucker's pinched the cable to the cow shed again, grab your 12 bore and get up there before they get away."

Re: Assembler is not "arcane"

Oh I dunno. I'd call Brainfuck and its derivatives pretty arcane (and perhaps archaic), even if they are about the simplest type of "virtual machine" you could dream up. Quite far removed from 10 PRINT "BOLLOCKS "; 20 GOTO 10.

a syntactically rich, high-level language like C or Python

Oh come on. High level like C or Python? Just because Assembly language is a mining operation in the Marianas trench, doesn't mean that paddling around in a Python (or Ruby, Perl, VB, even Javascript) playpool is anything like the heliox diving operation that is C.

Re: I believe it

Thanks, but I already have an 8 Pro iso from whatever-they're-calling-MSDNAA-this-week. Having passed the degree and therefore no longer being entitled to free downloads from Microsoft, there's no chance I'm paying full price for an 8.1 disk even if one was available. I don't think many other Windows 8 users will be doing that either, unless they have more money than sense.

Also "I got the Windows 8.1 ISO from MVLS" - so a download then, which requires a Microsoft account that's been authorised to use the MVLS. I'm sure all those people buying new PCs out there have access to Microsoft's volume licensing service. Not.

Now, log into the store from 8, wait for the umpteen-gig 8.1 upgrade download to finish and start installing stuff. After two or three reboots (some things don't change), it'll get to the same "setting up your machine" screens that millions of people who don't have the extra-special don't-piss-our-business-customers-off editions of Windows get to see.

Show me the local account option there. You know, in spite of it being an upgrade to a (virtual) machine which was primarily run on a local account.

Re: Whither Windows?

Re: I believe it

re: Microsoft account. Not needed in 8.0, not needed in 8.1.

I see someone who has never installed 8,1. Firstly, it's a Store download. Secondly, it asks you for your Microsoft account details or to create a new Microsoft account. No "local" option there unless it's buried even further than 8. You have to wait until after everything's installed and then, if you're the sort of user who even understamds how to do it, you can go into the control panel and set up a new local user.

This in spite of it being an "upgrade" from 8.0, which already had accounts on it. I mean really, what the fuck?

Re: Keep one asset with XP...

Re: I believe it

"you don't have to have an ms account"

True of 8.0 after a fashion. You are pushed into making a Store account in the same way you are pushed into installing unwanted toolbars with your CNET download. Be very careful about when and where you click "next".

8.1 though, good luck trying to install without a Microsoft account. For a start, it's only available in the Store. For a second, signing into a Microsoft account is an essential part of the finish-the-installation process. You have to wait until after you've given Microsoft a bunch of bullshit details before being able to create a "local" account.

Sure, anybody who's spent three or four years studying for a degree could probably hack their way around it. Most people though, probably don't even know there is a "local account" option.

They should do this MS Browser Screen style.

Put an option in the user account settings saying "would you like us to point you at other search engines while you search?"

Then we can click the button marked "No thankyou. If I wanted another search engine I'd already be there."

Except Microsoft actually have an abusive monopoly that's only in a slight, remote danger of being corroded 30 years later thanks to throwaway toyslabs with nowhere near the utility of a PC, and Google don't. And Microsoft are one of the Fairsearch group. Go fucking figure.

Re: Now try these same tests outside of the US

Actually, Google's speech recognition does seem leaps and bounds ahead of Siri, when it comes to understanding anything not spoken in posh American. Copes with a thick Lanky Twang surprisingly well. Siri, not so much.

"Goggle, whur's t'chippeh? I wants a babbi's 'ed fer tea. That last black pud was 'arder than an 'alf knacker an' left me feelin' all sorts o' wrong."

Okay, so maybe it couldn't cope with that too well, but it's pretty good nonetheless.

Re: M Wail M Blowhard Now this is more like it.

Did I say that this machine will be awesome for making your own AK47? What, I didn't?

Did I just say "The headless chickens going on about guns can fuck off and go wibble at something else. You can make a gun out of a pipe and a few other bits and pieces, so let's shut down B&Q for selling deadly weapons without a license, eh?"

Why yes, yes I think I did.

Did I also say "A zip gun made out of materials of known strength and composition (like a nice thick steel pipe) is probably a hell of a lot safer than anything bought after falling off the back of a lorry."

Crikey. Two for two. Hey, you trust that dodgy gun you bought from a guy in a pub if you like. It's probably only moderately less likely to blow your hand off than a Liberator.

And if a .22 long round is so shit, you go ahead, place one in a pipe stuck against your temple and whack the end nice and hard. Who knows, maybe you might do the world a favour?

Re: M Blowhard Now this is more like it.

"Blowhard", coming from Matt Bryant? Sorry, but you have zero right to call anybody that and be taken seriously.

If you're making copies of tin toys, maybe, but anything where you need strength in the steel - such as a gun barrel or engine gear - your cutlery set is not going to do the job.

How about we wait until a few people have made things and tested them before saying what this kit will or won't do? Personally I don't think the inert environment this apparently needs would be that expensive to maintain. Nitrogen is cheap and plentiful, bottles of CO2 can be refilled/exchanged at anywhere that does Soda Stream, for a couple of quid, and it doesn't have to be a hermetically sealed box. Besides, it seems that the thing uses standard MIG welding wire. So strong enough.

A gun made out of commercial piping and bits from B&Q is not going to be as safe or as useful as a proper commercial weapon.

A zip gun made out of materials of known strength and composition (like a nice thick steel pipe) is probably a hell of a lot safer than anything bought after falling off the back of a lorry. You know, the sort of illegal firearms that the sky-falling-on-head crowd don't think about, because they don't seem to be thinking in any capacity whatsoever.

Now this is more like it.

It's not so much the immediate price tag, it's the ability to refill the thing by chucking a 99p cutlery set or a pile of empty drinks cans at it.

The headless chickens going on about guns can fuck off and go wibble at something else. You can make a gun out of a pipe and a few other bits and pieces, so let's shut down B&Q for selling deadly weapons without a license, eh?

And the latest news upodate...

One wonders if the story would have garnered as much interest if the BMW owner had simply been engrossed in a book when his car caught fire.

Come now, you know the answer to that one. Books don't require batteries, so therefore don't run on Devil Juice. Computer games on the other hand, are powered by lost souls and Satan. How else do you think they get the little people on the screen? Poor buggers, condemned to an eternity of war so that you can play CoD.

Typing this in front of an AOC 5glr monitor. 19" CRT, runs at 1600x1200 nicely and you can push it to 2048x1536 if you don't mind interlaced flicker-o-vision. It's TCO '99 compliant, to give you an idea of vintage.

I have a G3 Power Mac sat on the floor with a bust PSU. Useless but at least it looks pretty. Right next to it is an Amstrad PPC640, which while in perfect working order, is only marginally more useful. Got two of those. One was bought from a Flea market, the other rescued out of a skip. Hefty buggers. Not so much "laptop" as "luggable", and two 720KB floppy drives on each one. Hard drive? Only if you've got an external to plug into the parallel port.

One working Megadrive and Mega CD (second edition), waiting for me to be bored enough to pull them out again. I always liked the original ones more, though.

Oh and a "domestic electrical test meter" that someone gave me, that seems to have come from the early days of the Roman empire. Just modern enough for modern UK plugs, but really not much more modern. I have no idea who it's made by. Neither the device nore the manual give any clue to that, just that it's called "The Mighty Meter", has a removable socket tester, and a socket built into its case for testing appliances, amongst other functions.

Re: License Violation

2013 and still pretending MS Ofiice is the big bruiser you have to pay before doing anything.

Yes actually, if you use it, then it is. If you're running a whole business on Student edition, you'll find that out next time Microsoft's lawyers start trawling for cash again. A bit like various small computer builders who were getting nastygrams for daring to replace a broken motherboard without charging the customer for a new OEM Windows install.

They'll wait until there's enough of a pool of license violators out there to bother with, then batch-threaten them for maximum return per hour of lawyer fees. If you think that won't happen, please feel free to carry on using MS Office: Grab 'Em While They Are Young Edition.

Re: Not DRONES just Radio Controlled Pests...

Why not? You can get surprising amounts of power out of a model engine with a purpose-built generator where the prop would be. Enough to run four brushless motors.

Direct drive is also very possible, otherwise helicopters wouldn't work. It's called "variable pitch", and it's been around for a long, long while. Some model helis have completely reversible pitch so you can fly 'em upside down. Look for "3D aerobatic" 'copters. You'll see what I mean. To say that you couldn't have an IC engine (or four of them) in a quadcopter is to ignore tried and trusted (and ancient) technology.

The drone doesn't have to just lob your parcel from 50 feet up. People who want the service (and I'm thinking business to business here), can pay rent on a landing pad that can sit on the roof of the office or wherever has sufficient access for drones and the humans collecting the packages. That or, as other people have suggested, use a drone to send the package to a point, and then use a van for the last mile.

Re: Not DRONES just Radio Controlled Pests...

Can you imagine the combined noise of all those 2 stroke engines buzzing overhead morning, noon and night?

For a start, there's no need for them to be two-stroke. Or methanol-fuelled. You can get some surprisingly quiet model aircraft engines in two or four-stroke with more than enough poke to drive a generator to generate electricity for the main brushless motors.

Quieter than the whacking great four-stroke diesels and reverse bleepers that announce Morning deliveries any other day, anyway. Or the screaming thousands-of-horsepower things that fly overhead every day around here, usually emblazoned with livery such as "Easyjet" or "Ryanair".

Or the copper chopper, which usually picks 4AM as its time to do nightly patrols.

Re: PC games?

Steam wouldn't exist without Steamworks, and even the KSP devs say that they are selling through Steam because for whatever reason, there's people who will ONLY buy games through Steam (despite the game being available more cheaply direct from their own website). They've stated the game will remain available through their website for the forseeable future, and as far as I'm aware, in a pitifully rare exception for games in general, they're not using Steamworks or any other DRM. Therefore, KSP will actually work without Steam running. Hell, you can just copy the game from your Steamapps folder, put it where you like and it will still run.

However, Steam would not exist without Steamworks, and you can "offline mode" me as much as you like. "Offline" mode isn't, and you know it. Unless of course I can install and run a Steamworks-hobbled game with no Internet connection whatsoever and without logging into Steam, and with a guarantee that nothing is going to phone home to anybody in order to decide if I get to continue having the use of a toy.

PC games?

You mean those wonderful games that demand an Internet connection for single player? The ones with built in crapware that checks up on you but does approximately fuck all to actually stop unauthorised copies flooding into torrentville? The ones with half the game stuck behind a single-use download coupon or being tied to an account because apparently being able to sell your own stuff second hand is evil and needs to be stamped out?

I'll stick with games like Kerbal Space Program precisely because (a) they don't do that, and (b) they're awesome. 99.99% of the rest of the PC gaming market can fuck off. Especially the "AAA" titles, and anything that demands a Steam, Origin or Ubisoft account.

And it still costs less for me to go out and buy a 200mph model aircraft that will probably last longer than a games console and doesn't spy on me. And I can sell it, or its parts, after extensive use. Hell, I could splash it all over a tree and the surviving bits are still worth a nice heap of cash toward buying a new one.

Re: "The 200 year old booze, which was the oldest ever found"

But I fail to see what 20th century fascists have to do with Jaques Cousteau...

Just pointing out that even the biggest cock-ends may have done some things that might be considered useful. It doesn't stop them from being cock-ends. Or genocidal maniacs.

In other news, Isaac Newton was also interested in the Occult, and Alchemy. Yes, the whole lead-into-gold thing. So crazy batshit insane in many ways, which doesn't detract from his quite useful (if superceded in more recent decades) theories on motion and gravity.

Re: "The 200 year old booze, which was the oldest ever found"

And Hitler made the trains run on time. Oh, and is responsible for the roads that many Germans enjoy the use of to this day. Also Volkswagen. He was still a momumental penis. Or should I say "a festering sore on the anus of humanity"?

I think they are slightly uncooler than bluetooth earpieces. Both cause me to want to take them off the wearer and stomp on them. Both of those devices rank up there with people on the phone in the bathroom; I make sure I flush the toilet repeatedly.

Well you sound like a fucking shitload of fun to be with.

Also what are you doing, sneaking into people's bathrooms to flush the bog while they are in there? Bit of a wierd fetish going on?

I still want to see how the deflation that is going to happen, or rather is happening with BTC is any better than (moderate) inflation. Don't forget that debts rise in real terms as well as the value of the currency, in a deflationary situation.

See when I saw this in September, I thought that Motorola had bought up the Phonebloks project and turned it into this.

So it turns out the truth is more like "hey, that open source project might actually make some money, let's close it off with something similar but incompatible."

Did wonder why the parts look a little different, and somewhat less customisable. How can you rearrange and put various different bits on when those spiney bits restrict what sizes of block you use, and when the connectors are all in specific places?